Spanish military planes dropped 26 tons of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip on Wednesday, and Madrid called on Israel to open land border crossings to prevent starvation, the foreign ministry said.
The operation, carried out in coordination with Jordan and co-financed by the European Union, delivered more than 11,000 meals to alleviate the catastrophic food shortage facing up to 1.1 million people in Gaza, the ministry said in a statement.
“Spain insists on the opening of land crossings as indispensable measures to avoid hunger,”’it is added.
Other Western countries, including the United States, France and Germany, have also resorted to airlifts to deliver aid to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza after nearly six months of war between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters.
Aid agencies claim that supplies to Gaza, much of which has been destroyed by Israeli bombardment, have been halted by bureaucratic obstacles and insecurity since the war began on October 7 last year.
Last week, a UN-backed report said famine was imminent and likely to occur in northern Gaza by May, and could spread through the enclave by July.
The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs also reaffirmed its commitment to support UNRWA, the United Nations humanitarian agency for aid to the Palestinians, and its continued existence.
In January, UNRWA’s main donors, including the US and Germany, suspended funding after allegations that around 12 of its tens of thousands of Palestinian staff were suspected of involvement in the Hamas attacks on Israel that triggered the war, Reuters reports.
